Echo Boom

For those of you who have never heard of viral marketing, it is a relatively new technique that marketers have spent the last decade perfecting.

Essentially, it consists of person-to-person ‘grassroots’ campaigns that rely on the consumer to spread the word about a given product to other consumers to create a more legitimate buzz about a particular product. This technique is critical today as many tweens have grown sceptical about the direct techniques and practices commonly used to advertise to them.

According Juliet Schor in her book ‘Born to Buy’ there are five components for a successful buzz marketing campaign which include:

1. Authenticity – Staying true to the brand
2. Advocacy – The consumer plays a direct role in advocating the product to other consumers
3. Experiential Messaging – Where the company often gives the product to the buzz agent or consumer advocate so they are more sincere when they talk about the product to others
4. Fusion of Strategies – Combination of a viral marketing strategy is typically complimented with a public relations campaign
5. Visibility and Virality – Done through a number of overt and covert actions

If the viral marketing campaign sounds elaborate that’s because it is. Perhaps the most important thing to pay attention to is that tweens are being asked to sell products and gain valuable information directly from their friends in covert manners.

For example, Schor talks about the successful “Slumber Party in a Box” put together by Girls Intelligence Agency, a buzz marketing agency. Tween girls who decide to join their “Best Friends Forever” (BFF) network are given products to discuss among their friends during the evening. The GIA agent is given the special task of recording what is said about the product and then reports back to the agency; creating a very intimate focus group and means of disseminating information about any given product at the party. GIA boasts that they can reach up to 20Million girls nation wide and their clients range from Disney to Warner Brothers to Mattel.

Another powerful player in the field of viral marketing is BzzAgent. This company was started by Dave Balter who is also the founding member of WOMMA, the “Word-of-Mouth Marketing Agency”. It involves a very elaborate network of bzz agents that chose various bzz campaigns they are interested in promoting among their friends. In exchange agents get rewarded points that they can use to trade in for any number of items that have been donated to BzzAgent by corporations. In fact, even the very nature of choosing the free items for ones hard work is part of the market research to gauge popularity of products among the agents.

Viral Marketing is only getting perfected. it is important to understand this new practice to see just how cheaply tweens are being sold off to sell out their friends.